Pericles

Pericles (495 BC-429 BC) was a Greek statesman, orator, and general who led the democratic city-state of Athens from 461 to 429 BC. Nicknamed "the Father of Democracy" and "the First Citizen of Athens", he led his polis into the "Golden Age of Athens", overseeing the city's reconstruction following the end of the Greco-Persian Wars and the construction of the Parthenon on the Acropolis. He died during a plague in Athens in 429 BC, just two years after the start of the Peloponnesian War, which would ultimately end Athens' hegemony.

Biography
Pericles was born in Athens in 495 BC, the son of the politician Xanthippus and his wife Agariste, the niece of the Athenian democratic reformer Cleisthenes. A few nights before Pericles was born, Agariste dreamed that she bore a lion, and some believed that this story referred to Pericles' large head. Pericles was an introvert as a youth, but he enjoyed the company of the philosophers Protagoras, Zeno of Elea, and Anaxagoras. In 472 BC, he supported the Athenian politician Themistocles against his aristocratic rival Cimon, but Themistocles was ostracized shortly afterwards. In 463 BC, Pericles was the leading prosecutor of Cimon, and he became the leader of the Democratic Party of Athens and had Cimon ostracized in 461 BC. That same year, he became the leader of Athens, and he used populist policies to win the support of the masses as he led Athens into an era of "radical democracy". He had the state cover the cost of the poor's admission to theatrical plays, lowered the property requirements for the archonship in 458-457 BC, and bestowed generous wages on all jurymen.

Pericles made his first military excursions during the "First Peloponnesian War" of 460-445 BC, remaining loyal to Athens' alliances with Argos and Megara. In 451 BC, he had Cimon return from exile to negotiate a peace with Sparta and let Cimon take command of the army abroad, hoping to form a political marriage between the Periclean liberals and the Cimonian conservatives. In the mid-450s BC, Pericles sent an expedition to support an Egyptian rebellion against Persian rule, but the expedition was disastrous. Cimon died of disease in 449 BC while fighting the Persians in Cyprus, erasing a threat to Pericles' rule. In 447 BC, Pericles expelled the Thracian barbarians from the Gallipoli peninsula to clear the way for Athenian colonists. However, the oligarchs of Thebes took over Boeotia that same year, and Phokis and Locris also fell under oligarchic control. In 446 BC, Euboea and Megara revolted, and Pericles bribed a Spartan army to return home before crushing the Euboean revolt and sending 2,000 Athenian colonists to Chalcis. In 442 BC, he ostracized his conservative opponent Thucydides, cementing his rule.

With several rebellions dealt with, Pericles decided to further empower Athens by moving the Delian League's treasury to Athens, effectively turning it into the "Athenian Empire". He decreed that the Delian League's vassals should supply tribute and soldiers to Athens whenever Athens was in need, and he used many of these funds to rebuild Athens and build the Parthenon atop the Acropolis, ushering in the "Golden Age of Athens". In 440 BC, he dispatched an expedition to Samos after it went to war with Miletus, and he forced the Samians to surrender after an eight-month siege and also quelled a revolt in Byzantium.

The Delian League grew so strong that war with Sparta and the Peloponnesian League was held to be inevitable, so Pericles did not hesitate to send a fleet to assist Corcyra's revolt against Corinth in 433 BC, leading to the start o the Peloponnesian War in 432 BC. Pericles decided to take advantage of Athens' naval strength by fortifying Athens against a spartan land siege while bringing in supplies and trade goods by sea; Pericles took a defensive approach to the war, while his populist rival and demagogue Cleon criticized Pericles and advocated a more hawkish position. Although the Spartans were able to plunder Attica several times, Pericles had the Athenian navy plunder the Peleponnesian coasts. In 429 BC, a plague outbreak nearly led to Pericles' deposition by Cleon, but the Athenians forgave him and re-elected him as strategos. His two sons died of the plague, and a saddened Pericles died not long after.